


with sword in hand, you ran

by sophiecognito



Series: FFxiv Write 2020 [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Ala Mhigo (Final Fantasy XIV), Blood and Violence, FFxivWrite, FFxivWrite2020, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Vignette, another oc origin story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26445259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiecognito/pseuds/sophiecognito
Summary: Ala Mhigo’s fall and freedom found Cryssa with a sword in hand.(The less she thought of the despondent in-between, the better. A coward’s way out, but it washers.The beginning was as good as any place to remain in her memories, like bitter coffee in the morning.)
Series: FFxiv Write 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917517
Kudos: 3





	with sword in hand, you ran

**Author's Note:**

> For FFxiv Write event!
> 
> Day 12: Tooth and Nail

Ala Mhigo’s fall and freedom found Cryssa with a sword in hand.

(The less she thought of the despondent in-between, the better. A coward’s way out, but it was _hers._ The beginning was as good as any place to remain in her memories, like bitter coffee in the morning.)

With the Empire’s army spilling into the city and her parents cut down like prey, the choices in her hands were few and limited. 

The sword she picked up dwarfed her hand, resplendent steel against dark skin. A dancer’s hands, though broad they were, belonged to her and Cryssa in her youth, not even ten summers old, knew this. Still, she fought. Rhalgr raced in her blood, lifted the weapon for her when her arms trembled. 

She was not alone; cut down like the rest of them.

Survival was left to chance, left for dead when the imperial missed its mark. Another girl dead, of the many who defended what little they had. 

Cryssa, more walking corpse than girl, woke later and found nothing resembling her home in Ala Mhigo. Clutching the sword with blood drenched fingers even in death, she rose to unsteady feet. Nothing anchored her here, not even the dead. 

The Garleans did not believe in gods or spirits, why would they care if a ghost walked past them?

And she walked and walked, past the gates, past the Lochs, into the mountains and sheer cliffs. The country was not her home, its hearth extinguished. In her addled mind, as she dragged the swords along, it was definitive. A string cut from its sisters. A change of song. 

Slowly, after her shoes broke, cold earth turned to underbrush and grass and rivers cutting through stone. Baelsar’s Wall was a dream soon to be fulfilled, but back then, only the Gridanian spires broke the foliage of the Shroud. 

When a Wood Wailer descended upon her, suspicion writ clear on his face, did Cryssa’s body allow itself to break. The sword fell silent as a prayer into the grass. It would be forgotten in time, rusted by rain. 

Cryssa lost consciousness then and dreamed no more. She would not think of Ala Mhigo for twenty years.

**Author's Note:**

> The lore bit of the girls and women remaining to fight off the imperials in Ala Mhigo always stuck to me.


End file.
